The present invention relates to methods and systems for inhibiting apneic events. More specifically, the present invention provides methods for monitoring physiological signals of a patient, predicting the occurrence of a life-threatening event such as apnea, and initiating a stimulus to lessen the severity of, or even prevent, the occurrence of the life-threatening event.
Infants with post-conceptional age of less than 36 weeks commonly have irregular breathing patterns with periodic and sporadic pauses in breathing, more commonly referred to as “apnea.” One way to analyze breathing patterns is use the time interval between breaths, also referred to as the “interbreath interval.”
Preterm infant breathing patterns are highly irregular, with rapid changes in measures of breathing. Standard statistical measures such as mean and variance of the interbreath interval have been used in an attempt to quantify the variability of breathing in preterm infants, but there is no known model available that can provide information in nonstationary breathing patterns using these statistical measurements.
It is believed that apneic events and poor respiratory function may also be contributing factors to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Even if not fatal, it is believed that apneic events and poor respiratory function may have a number of adverse consequences such as lengthening hospital stays, delaying development of an infant, or even irreparably harming the infant. These apneic events during infancy may affect the individual for their entire lifespan.
Therefore, it would be useful to describe pathological instabilities of breathing, track the dynamics in real time, and lessen the severity of an apneic event or entirely prevent an apneic event.